Two Roads Diverged

Yes, it has been more than a month since I've blogged. I haven't written in so long that I'm probably writing this to myself. The rest of you have probably given up on hearing the latest updates from me and have long since stopped checking the ol' stardate 30.

For those of you who know me all too well, you know that you've been waiting for something big. When Miss Dior doesn't communicate with the outside world for long stretches, that usually means she is mulling over something major and just doesn't know what to say about it yet. (Yes, I like to talk about myself in third person.)

Onto the something big....It's a complex emotion filled subject so let me start my sharing one of my favorite poems. I often think of "The Road Not Taken" when making big choices in my life.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Right now Picard and I are staring down a split in the road of life. We have wanted a Chinese child for more than three years now and have dreamed about the moment she would join our lives. However, things with Chinese adoption are not going well and it appears as though we may wait 3-5 years for this child, if she ever comes at all.

At the same time, our hearts have been pulled to a new and different direction. We have started exploring domestic adoption (meaning a child right here in our home state). We have started asking ourselves, could we love a child of another ethnicity? A black child? A biracial child? Our hearts have come back with a resounding yes. If we choose this particular domestic adoption option, we would have a child this year.

This is an intensely complex decision with a lot more details than I have the time or energy to write here. However, we are at this time, staring intently down both roads trying to determine which direction is the right one for us.

It's not about race. It's not about which option is quicker. It's about being open to the child that is meant for our family so that God can place her/him into our open arms when the time is right.
I don't currently know which road we'll take (thus why I've been so reluctant to blog), but I do know in the past I have been pulled to the "road less traveled" and right now that path has a tight grip on my heart.

Which road is that, you might ask? Here is a clue. There are 30,000 prospective parents waiting for children from China. There are children where I live who are not finding homes because not enough parents want to adopt them.